Study Tools

Black Boy

Richard Wright

Analysis of Major Characters

Part I (Southern Night): Chapter 1

Themes

Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas
explored in a literary work.

The Insidious Effects of Racism

Racism as a problem among individuals is a familiar topic
in literature. Black Boy, however, explores racism
not only as an odious belief held by odious people but also as an
insidious problem knit into the very fabric of society as a whole.
Wright portrays characters such as Olin and Pease as evil people,
but also—and more chillingly—as bit players in a vast drama of hatred,
fear, and oppression. For Richard, the true problem of racism is
not simply that it exists, but that its roots in American culture
are so deep it is doubtful whether these roots can be destroyed
without destroying the culture itself.

More than simply an autobiography, Black Boy represents
the culmination of Wright’s passionate desire to observe and reflect upon
the racist world around him. Throughout the work, we see Richard
observe the deleterious effects of racism not only as it affects
relations between whites and blacks, but also relations among blacks
themselves. Wright entitles his work Black Boy primarily
for the emphasis on the word “black”: this is a story of childhood,
but at every moment we are acutely aware of the color of Wright’s
skin. In America, he is not merely growing up; he is growing up
black. Indeed, it is virtually impossible for Richard to grow up
without the label of “black boy” constantly being applied to him.

Whites in the novel generally treat Richard poorly due
to the color of his skin. Even more important, racism is so insidious
that it prevents Richard from interacting normally even with the
whites who do treat him with a semblance of respect
(such as the Hoffmans or Mr. Crane) or with fellow blacks (such
as Harrison). Perhaps the most important factor in Wright’s specifically
“black” upbringing, however, is the fact that he grows up among
black people who are unable or unwilling to accept his individual
personality and his gifts. Wright’s critique of racism in America
includes a critique of the black community itself—specifically the
black folk community that is unable or unwilling to educate him
properly. The fact that he has been kept apart from such education
becomes clear to Richard when he recognizes his love of literature
at a late age.

The Individual Versus Society

Richard is fiercely individual and constantly expresses
a desire to join society on his own terms rather than be forced
into one of the categories that society wishes him to fill. In this
regard, Richard struggles against a dominant white culture—both
in the South and in the North—and even against his own black culture.
Neither white nor black culture knows how to handle a brilliant,
strong-willed, self-respecting black man. Richard perceives that
his options are either to conform or to wilt. Needless to say, neither
option satisfies him, so he forges his own middle path.

Richard defies these two unsatisfactory options in different
ways throughout the novel. He defies them in Granny’s home, where
he lives without embracing its barren, mandatory spirituality. He defies
these options at school, where the principal asserts that Richard
must read an official speech or not graduate. He defies them in Chicago,
where the Communist Party asserts that he will either act as they
tell him to act or be expelled. Richard negates this final choice
by leaving the Party of his own accord. As we see, Richard always
rejects the call to conform. This rejection creates strife and difficulty,
however—not because Richard thinks cynically about people and refuses
to have anything more to do with them, but precisely because he
does not take this approach. Though Richard wishes
to remain an individual, he feels connected to the rest of humanity
on a spiritual level. Therefore, as an artist, he must struggle
to show compassion for communities that say they do not want him.
It is a difficult task, but one that he learns to accept at the
end of the novel.

The Redemptive Power of Art

When Ella the schoolteacher furtively whispers to Richard
the plot of Bluebeard and His Seven Wives, Richard
becomes transfixed; he says that the story evokes his first “total
emotional response.” This trend continues throughout the novel,
as a number of experiences in Richard’s life prove eye-opening in
the best sense, enabling him to become excited about his life and
to feel that his life has texture, meaning, and purpose. Such eye-opening
experiences include Richard’s hearing of the Bluebeard story, his
reading of science-fiction and horror magazines, his penning of
the story of the Indian maiden, his discovery of H. L. Mencken,
his writing of “The Voodoo of Hell’s Half-Acre,” and his decision
that he can use his writing to advance the cause of the Communist
Party. These experiences all involve reading or some other use of
his imaginative faculties, and all bolster his idea that life becomes
meaningful through creative attempts to make sense of it. This
is a core idea in the history of philosophy, first articulated by
Schopenhauer, refined by Nietzsche, and then taken up by the existentialists,
with whom Wright grew fascinated. Indeed, the writing of Black
Boy itself, when seen as Wright’s attempt to order the
experiences of his life, is closely tied to this idea of the redemptive
power of creativity.

Motifs

Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, or literary
devices that can help to develop and inform the text’s major themes.

Hunger

By frequently reminding us of the problem of his physical
hunger, Wright emphasizes his hunger for other things as well—for
literature, artistic expression, and engagement in social and political issues.
Though there are indeed many instances in the novel when Richard
does physically hunger for food, he eventually concludes that food
is not as important as the other problems facing the world. He asserts
that the world needs unity more than it needs to cure physical ills.
Both Richard and the world have a more important need: understanding
of and connection with one another. Physical hunger is merely a
symbol of the larger emptiness Richard’s brutal, inhumane life causes
him to feel. Throughout the autobiography he exhibits a strong desire
to carve out a richer, more satisfying existence by connecting with
the world around him. Just as literal hunger works to undo itself
by making a person want to eat, so the motif of hunger works in Black
Boy. Richard’s greater emotional and intellectual hunger
serves as a sort of literary magnet that pulls us through the story,
making us just as anxious to see Richard succeed as he is.

Reading

Throughout the text, Richard seeks out reading with a
passion that resembles a physical appetite. Indeed, these two sensations—the desire
to read and the desire to eat—are closely allied. At times, this alliance
breaks down and the two sensations flow together. In Chapter 5,
for example, Richard catches the smell of meat frying in a neighbor’s
kitchen while he is reading. From his bookish daydreams, Richard
drifts into a fantasy of having plenty of meat to eat. There is
also the image, in Chapter 15, of Richard
simultaneously devouring food and Proust’s novel A Remembrance
of Things Past, hoping to flesh out his body and his writing.
It is as if Proust is part of Richard’s weight-gaining plan. This
blurring of literary and physical appetite is most explicit when
Richard remarks, “I lived on what I did not eat,” suggesting that,
at some level, reading takes the place of food. As such, reading
works as a counterpoint to the motif of hunger in the novel. While
hunger represents the spiritual and emotional emptiness within Richard,
reading represents Richard’s bread and water, giving him the energy
he needs to persevere.

Violence

Richard is cursed, beaten, or slapped every time he stands
up to Granny, Addie, or other elders, regardless of how justified
he may be in doing so. When whites believe Richard is behaving unacceptably in
their presence, they berate, slap, or manipulate him; in one instance,
they smash a whiskey bottle in his face. When Richard acts out of
line with the Communist Party, they denounce him and attempt to
sabotage his career. Clearly, then, violence—which here means all
the abuse, physical or mental, that Richard suffers—is a constant
presence in Black Boy. Violence looms as an almost
inevitable consequence when Richard asserts himself, both in the
family and in society.

However, violence takes over Richard’s mind as well. Richard learns
that he must demonstrate his violent power in order to gain respect
and acceptance at school. Additionally, he reacts to his family’s
violent, overbearing treatment with violence of his own, wielding
a knife against Addie, burning down the house, and so on. More broadly,
violence infects the black community in general, whether from within
or from the white community’s imposed violence.

Perhaps the most important violent sequence in the novel
occurs when Olin makes Richard and Harrison suspect each other of
murderous intentions. Even though they acknowledge to each other
that they mean each other no harm, they cannot escape the reality
that the racist culture demands they fight viciously. One root of
this violence between Richard and Harrison is Olin’s feigned friendship toward
each of the men. Thus, we come to see that violence in a racist
world often goes beyond physical attacks.

Symbols

Symbols are objects, characters, figures, or colors
used to represent abstract ideas or concepts.

Ella’s Infirmity

In Renaissance and Gothic literature, a deformity or some
other physical impairment often serves as an outward sign of an unhealthy
or evil soul. This kind of symbolism implies that the universe is
a sensible place, as an evil soul is rewarded with a mangled body.
In Black Boy, however, the opposite is true. Richard’s
mother, Ella, is one of the few people in the novel—and the only
person in the entire family—who seems genuinely concerned for Richard’s welfare.
If anyone in the novel has a truly good, saintlike soul, it is Ella.
However, she is beset with incurable ailments and paralytic legs.
Other family members, meanwhile, have abundant strength, which they
frequently use to beat Richard for trivial offenses. In this context,
Ella’s infirmity symbolizes for Richard the unfair and random nature
of the universe.

The Optical Shop in Memphis

In the microcosm of the optical shop in Memphis, Olin
represents the Southern white racists willing to terrorize black
people for the sake of amusement, while Falk represents those Southern
whites who genuinely sympathize with black people and who are willing
to help them. Shorty represents the black workers who pander to whites
but inwardly retain their racial and personal pride. The building’s
unnamed porter, with his daily wail about having to work in the
same place day in and day out, represents the more embittered black
workers of the South. Several Ku Klux Klan members and Jews also
populate the office. As such, the Memphis optical shop is a microcosm
of racial stratification in the South. Wright concentrates the racial
dynamics of the region in one physical space in order to show that
people who think they are different from or better than their peers
are actually integrally connected to them.